Written question asked by Steve Brine (Conservative) on Thursday, 10 March 2011, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Monday, 14 March 2011. It was answered by Tim Loughton (Conservative) on Monday, 28 March 2011 on behalf of the Department for Education.

CAFCASS

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Education what recent assessment he has made of the productivity of the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service.

Answer: I monitor CAFCASS's productivity as part of my quarterly accountability meetings with the service. CAFCASS calculate their productivity by comparing the level of unallocated work at the end of each month with that at the start of April 2010, and analysing the degree to which an increased level of work has been absorbed without a permanent increase in resources. On this basis CAFCASS's productivity increased by 7.7% in the most recent period considered (May 2010 to December 2010). An indication of this is that CAFCASS is providing guardians for children in 12,624 cases now compared to only 10,518 cases a year ago.

Secondary information